Action!

The last couple of months I've been posting ideas and tips on how to build a complex adventure/ setting for the characters to discover. At least for me, that's a system and a method that works very well.

However, the kind of gaming that it generally results in is investigative, social and conspiratorical. What if I want a game or two that is action filled, fast paced and exciting? Furthermore, what if I want that kind of game, but keep it low prep?

One thing that I have noticed about many games is that there is nothing that slows a game down as much as action and excitement. Most of the time, it is reduced to a series of rolls, that just takes time from the overall plot. So, I've been toying around with different ways to add some more excitement to the game. Among the design goals is that it should be low-prep, hard to predict and not just feel like the GM adds another opportunity to roll the dice.

This idea is slightly based on what John Wick did in A Wilderness of Mirrors. In that game, you can get bonus dice if you add a complication for another player. So, why not try to add that to more games? What if, at any time, a player can throw a small threat on another player? If you do that, you get fate/destiny/plot-points to your own character. So, if you need that points to learn that spell or that stunt... state that the warrior slips on the ledge, and finds himself hanging by his fingernails over that deep chasm.

One could also add that an area or a certain phase has a higher or lower danger level. At higher levels, you can narrate more dangerous situations for more fate-points to your character.

This idea needs whole heaps of polishing and thinking, and I'm not even sure it works, but it would be fun to try it out, and I'll keep it in mind when designing my two games War! and Even I can bleed. Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated.